Orb Data has for many years run a remote support service where we perform all or part of the tasks of your in-house Tivoli/Netcool support team. This service is aimed at customers who need a scheduling, discovery, or monitoring solution however don't have the manpower or will to manage the implementation. We currently cover products such as Netcool/OMNIbus, Netcool/Impact, TADDM, IBM APM, IBM Tivoli Monitoring (ITM) and Tivoli Workload Scheduler (TWS) amongst others.

Virtual Employee

Orb Data’s Managed Services team can either take over the running, implementation and upgrade of your existing installation or by acting as a remote part of your current team we can essentially become a virtual employee of your organization. This means that:

Your staff can concentrate on their main roles

There are no expensive training requirements

There are no concerns that your trained resource will leave or go on holiday

Because we are experts we are able to maximise the ROI of your solution through our continuous service improvement work offered as part of a managed support service

Reducing project Costs

Recently for some newer customers whilst we have been discussing the remote support service we have also been asked to quote for a separate implementation, upgrade or customization project. Normally in this instance we would quote for the estimated number of man-days assuming that the Orb Data resource would complete all the tasks and be on-site all of the time. However, because the customer already has (or is about to sign) a remote support contract we can vastly reduce the days we quote for the project, in particular when the project timelines are fairly flexible. There are 2 reasons for this:

1/When the project plan is created we define 3 types of tasks; Customer, Consultancy and Managed Services (or remote support). Generally Managed Services tasks have been defined by our lead consultant and will include simpler jobs such as Server Build and Configuration and pre-deployment testing. The Managed Services team can also try and resolve any issues that come up during the project (PMR resolution) letting the consultant carry on with the more complex work. As a guide to the savings that can be achieved, for a recent customer we created an initial project plan that allocated the days along the following lines:

Resource

Percentage of Time

Customer

10%

Managed Services

52%

Consultancy

38%

As you can see the remote Managed Services team was able to fulfil over 50% of the tasks of the project for about ¼ of the price of a consultant.

2/In a normal project there can be delays that are beyond our control such as hardware not being ready, customer resource not being available or PMRs being raised. In the past this may mean that the number of consultancy days has to increase but under this new model the costs we have estimated will not increase. In a conventional project scenario where we have committed to being on-site unplanned delays can quickly use up time and budget that was not allowed for however using a blend of remote support/consultancy we do not have to worry about this because if these issues occur they can be dealt with remotely and at the customer’s convenience.

Return on Investment

Orb Data believes in providing value for money. The cost savings from a using our Remote Support team come as there are no longer costs for implementation, training and upgrades. This coupled with faster resolution to issues and the fact that well run services lead to a better ROI on Business Services (i.e. increased availability, productivity, etc) means that there is a real financial benefit for potentially a better service.

This coupled with the savings from project consultancy can really help to reduce your costs. Therefore, if you need help with the maintenance and running of your Tivoli/Netcool environment and have some upcoming projects for which you need skilled resource then let us know and we may be able to reduce the costs and improve the day to day running of your environment at the same time.

About Us

Orb Data brings together People, Process and Technology to deliver the cornerstone of business success: the management of IT infrastructure. At our heart are our people. We have unrivalled experience, helping us to achieve an enviable reputation for excellence in project delivery. Because we’re independent, we identify actual issues and help organisations resolve them –from spec to deployment, and beyond –providing the right solution in terms of best of breed technology and support. We offer a refreshingly simple approach to the way we conduct business. We take pride in our abilities to provide first class solutions to business problems, and to conduct working relationships with honesty and integrity.